Manchester Arena bomber Salman Abedi’s brother GUILTY of killing 22 people in ‘cowardly’ terror attack
THE twisted brother of the Manchester Arena suicide bomber played an even greater part than the killer in planning the attack.
Fanatic Hashem Abedi’s full role can be revealed after he was yesterday convicted of 22 counts of murder.
Hashem, 22, helped his warped jihadi brother source shrapnel used in the homemade bomb that tore through the Manchester Arena in 2017.
The blast killed 22 people including an eight-year-old girl and left hundreds of others injured as gig-goers as they spilled out of an Ariana Grande concert.
Salman Abedi was killed in the terror attack, while brother Hashem was 2,000 miles away in Libya plotting further bloodshed around the world.
He was today found guilty of all 22 counts of murder, one count of attempted murder encompassing the injured survivors, and conspiring with his brother to cause explosions.
Families of the victims wept as jurors took less than five hours of deliberation to convict him on all counts.
They heard how Hashem was "every bit as responsible" as his older brother - and may have been the ringleader in the murderous plot.
Detective Chief Superintendent Simon Barraclough said: "If you look at these two brothers, they are not kids caught in the headlights of something they don't understand.
"These two men are the real deal, these are proper jihadis - you do not walk into a space like the Manchester Arena and kill yourself with an enormous bomb like that, taking 22 innocent lives with you, if you are not a proper jihadist.
"He was with his brother throughout the entire process of making this explosive and building this bomb, I believe he provided encouragement right up to the end.
"This was all about the sick ideology of Islamic State and this desire for martyrdom."
During his trial, the Old Bailey heard how the sadistic brothers spent months hatching the bloodbath - using bank accounts of pals to buy chemicals online.
The pair used their mum's £550-a-week benefit payments, which she continued to receive after she left the UK for Libya, to buy tools.
They flew back to Libya when friends noticed signs they had been radicalised but just days before the attack, Salman Abedi returned to Manchester.
Haunting CCTV caught him skulking around the arena at a Take That gig on a practice run.
And Hashem Abedi, a former electronics student, continued advising him by phone — and is believed to have been the last person he spoke to when he stopped at a bench on his way to the gig.
Salman later left for the nearby Arndale shopping centre where he bought batteries and a blue Kangol suitcase so he could move his bomb-making equipment to the flat he rented in Manchester city centre.
DEADLY BLAST
He was then caught in chilling CCTV images with a rucksack packed with thousands of nuts just 19 seconds before the deadly blast.
Salman Abedi waited for around an hour in the Manchester Arena foyer before parents and children left the gig at 10.30pm.
One minute later, he detonated the bomb as 359 people stood in the City Room - with 19 declared dead at the scene.
Among debris found after the blast were 1,675 nyloc nuts, 156 flanged nuts, 663 plain nuts and 11 fragments from Salman Abedi and his victims.
There were also screws recovered by investigators but they were so damaged they couldn't be counted.
Images shown to jurors also feature charred clothing recovered from the scene and labels from vegetable oil used to make the bomb.
Among other debris were fragments from a money tin decorated with the design of a £5 note also used to maim innocent gig-goers.
The youngest victim, Saffie-Rose Roussos, eight, suffered more than 70 external injuries, with 17 metal nuts in her body, and died from blood loss due to multiple injuries.
Student Chloe Rutherford, 17, suffered more than 100 injuries, including a brain injury which would have left her immediately unconscious, the court was told.
Jurors also heard Salman Abedi's body was later recovered in four parts and he had to be identified by his DNA and fingerprints.
Forensic investigators later found more than 2,000 nuts from the homemade bomb at the scene.
After the blast, Hashem Abedi denied he was an extremist but the court heard his DNA was discovered in a Nissan Micra used to store packs of nails for the bomb.
Saman Abedi was captured in CCTV footage returning to the car after his Take That "practice run" four days before the terror attack.
The brothers were born in Manchester to Libyan parents and booked one-way tickets the country in April 2017 after stockpiling chemicals used to make the homemade explosive.
Salman Abedi then returned to his native Manchester on May 18 to carry out the atrocity.
Hashem repeatedly denied any knowledge of his brother’s plot and suggested he had been conned into believing the bomb parts were for household use.
He was arrested by Libyan authorities soon after the attack but an extradition bid proved difficult because of the civil war raging in the North African country.
The Sun on Sunday revealed the extradition bid cost UK taxpayers £123,000.
He then refused to defend himself at trial and stopped attending court - remaining absent from the dock today as the verdicts were delivered.
Victoria Higgins, from law firm Slater and Gordon, which represented 11 of the bereaved families, said after the verdicts: “Families have waited a long time to see Hashem Abedi face justice for his crimes and I think the overwhelming emotion for most will be one of relief that he cannot hurt anyone else.
“It has been incredibly painful for them to hear, in detail, what happened to their loved ones and the calculated way in which the Abedi brothers plotted to end their lives.”
Abedi will be sentenced at a later date.